Vash's Little Cinderella
by Vanilla Mochi
Summary: "Good night Lili." Vash always knew sooner or later he'd have to let go of his younger sister. Based off of Steven Chapman's 'Cinderella'. Liechtenstein/Prussia AU


**A/N: Switzerland's probably going to shoot me for this.**

Vash grumbled, glaring down at the sheet of paper across his desk with his pen in one hand and the other rubbing his temple. The idiots at the bank were spending money. Again. And what they were using it for? Well, he didn't know, because he didn't care. The only thing that mattered now to him was that Vash has more paperwork to do; and it's not enjoyable. Not one bit.

The next day, Vash thought, he's bringing his shotgun in to shoot whoever caused this. That at least what he thought until…

"Big Bruder?" A little girl about the age 7 peeked from behind the doorway, her blue ribbon hanging firmly in a chunk of blonde hair.

"Hm?" He turned around, still in his swivel chair (it was a gift for his 18th birthday). Dropping the pen on the desk, he placed his hands on his knees, "Lili? Is there something you need? You should be in bed."

"Um…"

"Yes?" Vash repeated, now annoyed. It was a habit of his dear little sister that he was trying to break. If she wanted something there shouldn't be a reason for her to hesitate.

Running into the room, better own as Vash's study, Vash noticed Lili was in the dress that she had gotten for her most recent birthday instead of her nightgown as supposed to be. It was a gift from their Ukrainian neighbor, Katyusha Braginskaya and her younger brother and sister, Ivan and Natalia, as Vash's Polish colleague would say that he is simply too frugal to spare some money to buy Lili a nice birthday present.

"Grandfather is having a ball tomorrow night at his mansion and I've been invited." She fiddled with her thumbs, blushing, "I was wondering if you could help me practice my dancing."

"Well…" Vash glanced back at the paperwork on his desk. He had to finish his paperwork by tonight, for he may be in hot water by the very same man, Lili spoke of, but still…

"Please Big Bruder, please?" There was no way that Vash could refuse her now. Not with her innocent green eyes staring hopefully into his own green pair like a puppy.

"Fine." He stood up from his chair like an elderly man would, although only nineteen, roughly taking her tiny hand, yet clasping it tenderly in his own. He led her to the living room, where a hardwood floor suitable for ballroom dancing lived, giving fire to a couple of candles for light. After letting go of his sister's hand, he held it out low enough for Lili to see. "May I have this dance?"

For a while under his careful guidance, they danced to what somewhat resembled the Waltz. (Note: Vash is a surprisingly excellent dancer, being taught by his mother; Lili was also taught by her mother) Although some of the steps were out of order, Vash didn't say anything. He was too focused on his sister. His little princess. Cinderella, he would even say.

He was never a fan of fairy-tales since he was twelve; there was just no such thing as happy endings and he had learned it the hard way.

Still, he couldn't help but see the peasant-turned-princess in his golden-haired sister. And for now, he'd just savor the single moment.

However Cinderella can't stay with the Prince forever, just as the moment could not either.

"Sleepy?" Vash asked after he heard Lili yawn; she gave him a nod. He was flustered, but picked her up bridal style, holding her protectively to his chest, while pushing the painted white door to her bedroom open. When she was tucked safely beneath her blankets, Vash kissed his sister on the forehead, and left her to pleasant dreams.

As he closed Lili's bedroom door, the old grandfather clock in the living room struck midnight, making a loud bell-like sound.

"Good night Lili." The thought of shooting someone at the bank tomorrow morning was nowhere to be found.

They weren't actually blood siblings, but Vash still considered her his dear sister. She was adopted, only a few months old, by his parents, when he was twelve.

He could remember the day he saw her. The way her green eyes stared innocently up at him and how her tiny hand wrapping around his finger in such a helpless way. He was immediately attracted to her.

For the next four years, they grew up just like any other pair of siblings would. The fifth year, however, they lost their parents to a car accident. Vash was sixteen and Lili was only four.

After that, their stoic grandfather, Alfher Zwingli took them in and adopted them as his own children. Though scary in attitude, Alfher was actually a very kind parent, ranging from paying for Vash's education to being a father figure for both children. He was even the one who got Vash's job at the bank through his connections. Finally though, the time came when Vash became an adult, where he left the wing of his grandfather to live in his own apartment with his sister.

Even with Alfher around to care for them though, Vash made it his personal duty to protect his sister from harm. He didn't want to lose anyone else to Death.

And so, ten years passed by peacefully and uneventfully. Vash stayed the same as ever; he was twenty-nine, a diligent banker. His colleagues (who were the same ones ten years ago, save a few people coming and leaving the bank) had begun to suggest to him to settle down, get married. He ignored the thought of marriage, too focused on taking care of Lili.

Unlike Vash though, Lili changed.

She was a 17 year old now; a very beautiful one too. The boys at her school would often stare at her in awe as she walked by them. How he knew this? He had front row seat to see that, being Lili's escort to the high school on his way to the bank every day of the school year. If he caught any of the male student population eyeing at her in a certain way, they'd get the evil eye from Vash and cower in fear.

They, Vash thought, should be glad the bank doesn't allow its employees to bring guns with them.

However, there were always a few, whom Vash could never intimidate off. Arthur Kirkland was such an example.

He was seventeen, just like Lili. A British gentleman as he proclaimed himself. But Vash preferred to call him Eyebrows after those thick bushy brows of his. English was his first language, but he spoke decent German too. He was polite, hard-working, a little bizarre in the brain, but nevertheless a good kid that Lili would say her brother would approve of. The only thing Vash hated about Arthur was that he was clearly had a crush on Lili; he didn't try to hide his interest either. And to only add to Vash's dislike for the English teen, Lili returned Arthur's feelings as well.

Prom at Hetalia Gakuen High was coming up very soon, and it was no one's surprise, even to Vash's that Arthur asked Lili to prom during the school's pep rally.

"Vash? Do I look okay in this dress?" Lili stood at the doorway of Vash's study, her hands lifting the skirt of her prom gown, "Auntie Katyusha and Natalia helped me find it."

"Y-you look fine in it, Lili." Vash stuttered, caught off guard. However the compliment was not enough for her, as her brother could still see the apprehension in her eyes, "You look beautiful." He quickly assured her, "I don't see how Eyebrows won't like it."

"Eyebrows?"

"Kirkland." He replied curtly, "Your date."

"I am glad." Lili smiled, relieved, "But…"

"What?" Vash sighed in irritation. He really needed to get his work done.

"The Prom is in about a week… and Arthur is a really good dancer, so… I wanted to practice my dancing. So I won't embarrass him."

"Please Vash, please?" she continued, begging for him with those pleading green eyes of hers. Her eyes were the one thing Vash noticed about Lili that never changed after all these years. They were just as pure and innocent as ever.

Standing up, he took Lili by the hand, walking away from his study with her; a break from paperwork couldn't hurt, Vash supposed, as he placed a hand on her slim waist, beginning to waltz with her in the living room.

Eventually though, Lili had become sleepy just like that time, ten years ago, in which, Vash had taken her to her chamber on the second floor of their house, so that she may change out of her prom dress. Once she was finally in bed, Vash stared at her sleeping face forlornly, yet protective like a father to his child.

Lili was growing up and it was a fact Vash could not deny.

He thought of the little girl that used to interrupt him from the boatload of paperwork from their grandfather's bank, bugging him to dance with her and play in her make-believe fantasies; he wondered where that little girl disappeared to.

RING!

Vash jumped involuntarily, glancing around himself, alarmed. Soon after though, he sighed, brushing a strand of hair out his sister's face, realizing the grandfather clock was only telling anyone who'd listen that it's midnight.

"Good night Lili."

Prom came sooner than expected, but either way, before he allowed Arthur to take Lili to one of the best nights of her life, he warned Arthur ominously if he did anything out of line to Lili, Vash would personally shoot him with the machine gun of his late father. Then after that, he'd castrate the English boy. All of this was said before Lili arrived at the entrance, dressed like a princess in a gown and matching gloves and flats.

Watching Lili being driven away by Arthur, Vash couldn't help but think his once tiny sister was growing up: becoming a woman.

Another week passed and Vash later found out that Lili and Arthur was now a couple. The brother-sister tradition to guide the younger one to school had been broken apart by the British teenager, for he ushered Lili every morning now.

"Good-bye Big Bruder." Lili bowed slightly with a polite grin towards Vash before walking off to join Arthur on the sidewalk of their quaint wooden house. Vash couldn't help but frown deeply at Arthur from the window, feeling some kind of anger when the pair linked hands together.

Sure, Lili was right; Arthur was a decent man. Although Vash found his British accent strange, the boy was like him in many ways: gruff, yet gentle-hearted to those he cared about; it was Lili for the both of them. Still, Vash resented Arthur for taking the most important person to him away from him. The child who held his hand so tightly as a baby. The little girl who begged him to play with her. The girl who'd serve him hot chocolate after a long day at the bank. And now… that English boy, who didn't know her nearly as well as he did just came and swooped her off her feet.

It bothered him, but he would never admit this to Lili. If Lili was happy, then he knew would be too with time.

As for Vash's own love life, he vaguely remembered dating a Monacan woman during his college years, but they broke up a few months later, because of Vash's workaholic habits and her gambling tendencies. He considered dating her was the worst mistakes he ever made.

Why him, of all people?

Lili and Arthur stayed together for the rest of their senior year, supposedly growing strong. A few months in the summer, however, they unexpectedly broke up, as Lili returned home, trying hard to keep a composed face. She was doing okay with it.

According to her, Arthur and she separated because Arthur claimed to be in love with his Seychellois friend, Angelica Bonnefoy. He still wanted to be friends with Lili though.

Despite Arthur's offer of friendship, to say Vash was furious was an understatement. Words could not describe how pissed he felt at Arthur for breaking his sister's heart. Once he heard the entire story, oh Arthur was so dead in Vash's eyes. He'd hunt the British kid down and shoot him right there on the spot and then he'd-! Well, let's just say the world would have one less Englishman.

All of these thoughts were abruptly put to a stop by Lili, who tugged on his shirt (he wasn't kidding about shooting Arthur with any of the weapons found in their dead father's gun collection and was just about to do so right now).

"It's okay, Big Bruder," Lili said at first, her dirty blond locks covering her eyes. She glanced up at him, giving him a forced smile, in attempt to not break down, "If he's happy, then I'll be too. I'll be fine."

That very same night, Vash heard bitter sobbing from his sister's room and watched over her from outside her bedroom door until she finally fell asleep, tired from crying.

It took a year, but Lili did get over Arthur. It was a while but it finally happened; she was now on good terms with him and considered him her dear friend.

Anyways, enough with the background story, so of all of the available bachelors in the town, why him?

She could've picked the serious German that lived across the street with his brother. During his school years, he was straight-A student, on the football (they live in Europe by the way) team, and was student council president. If he was Lili, he would've taken interest in him.

Or she could've chosen that annoying Italian, Feliciano Vargas, who kept on trespassing on Vash's lawn in his boxers. Those evenings, Vash would spend the entire night, trigger-happy, threatening to shoot the teenager if he ever found the Italian frocking about in his yard. Still, at the very least, Feliciano was lovable to everyone and would make a good husband Lili. He knew how to cook and cross-stitched like she did.

She could've even chosen Feliciano's brother, Lovino Vargas, but he cursed way too much, and Vash didn't want his sister learning that kind of language.

So if there were men like them, then why was he attending the engagement party of Lili Zwingli and Gilbert Beilschmidt?

Gilbert was the last person Vash thought Lili would ever associate with; they were complete opposites. Lili was polite, ladylike. Gilbert was obnoxious and used crude language (he wasn't a part of the notorious Bad Touch Trio for nothing). Back in high school Lili was loved by everyone, while her classmates feared for their virginity around Gilbert (not as bad as Francis though). Plus, Vash hated that kid's guts; he said 'awesome' too much.

Despite the major differences and their social standings, two of them somehow met and even got along much to everyone's surprise. Even Gilbert's younger brother, Ludwig, the boy who lived across the street was bewildered to see his brother chatting with a girl without scaring them off. Apparently, when they met, face to face, they just clicked together like two peas in a pod. They bonded over being in the same position. Gilbert lost his Hungarian childhood friend and crush, Elizaveta, to a stuck-up aristocrat Austrian (he thought the Austrian was so unawesome that he didn't even bother to remember his name) and Lili was still in love with her ex. However, they both got over their lost loves, thanks to each other and eventually Gilbert finally asked Lili to be his awesome girlfriend.

She said yes.

And now it's leading up to marriage.

"Big Bruder." Vash was snapped out of his thoughts by his little sister. He was at Grandfather Alfher's chateau and he was leaning against one of the marble poles, arms crossed, watching from afar. A crowd surrounded the engaged couple, each person giving their congratulations.

But now, Lili, in a turquoise gown, stood in front of him, having to sneak out of the crowd.

"The wedding is still six months away and I need to practice my dancing."

Vash, now flustered, held his hand out for her; she didn't need to ask.

Six months was supposed to be a long time, but Vash thought they passed by in a snap.

Lili looked radiant in her wedding dress; she could be mistaken for a goddess. As for Vash, he wore his father's old suit to the wedding, despite it being locked away for twenty years. It took him about three hours just to get it dirt free because Vash was too much of a cheapskate to get the tuxedo cleaned at a laundry store.

He walked her down the aisle, dreading each step. The time to let his sister go was coming very soon. After the last step, he held his breath painfully, glancing up at the altar. His grip on Lili's hand became tighter. He glared at the groom sternly as if to say 'You hurt her, you die.'

"Big Bruder." His grip slackened as the younger girl's hand slipped out of his own. It then entwined with Gilbert's.

That night when Vash arrived home, he was greeted by the old grandfather clock, striking midnight.

RING! RING!

Vash made his way to Lili's old bedroom and opened the door. It was empty.

Dropping his hand on doorknob, he closed his eyes. Lili was not here.

Cinderella doesn't stay with the prince past midnight and neither did Lili.

"Good night Lili."

Goodbye.

**A/N: Hope you liked it! … I'm locking the doors tonight and the windows too…**


End file.
